Honesty in your career
The Time I Told an Institute Director How Bad His Organisation Was (Before I Knew He Was the Institute Director)
Let’s step back in time a little.
I’d been teaching music courses for TAFE in Victoria, and it was a great gig. Good students, decent resources, a system that mostly made sense. This was back in the late 1990’s, when mobile phones were the size of bricks and nobody had heard the word “podcast” yet.
Then I moved interstate. New state, new opportunity, a role with a major online learning project. Exciting stuff, at least on paper. Part of the job meant flying to Sydney every month for meetings and training.
First flight.
I was meant to meet one of my co-workers at the airport. Simple enough. Except instead of my co-worker, some guy in a plain work shirt walked up, saw me standing there looking lost, and introduced himself. Just his name. No title. No warning label saying “by the way, I run this whole show.”
Naturally, he asked what I thought of the organisation so far.
Now here’s the thing about me. If you ask me a question, I generally answer it honestly. I don’t have a filter that quietly checks “who exactly am I talking to and how much power do they have over my future” before opening my mouth. Probably should install one. Never got around to it.
So I told him.
I told him my previous organisation had proper workbooks for every subject. I told him the student assessment process back at my old TAFE was more structured, more consistent, better thought through. I gave him the full, honest, unfiltered rundown, standing at an airport, talking to a man I’d known for approximately ninety seconds.
Then my actual co-worker showed up.
He looked at the two of us mid-conversation and said, casually, like it was nothing, “Oh, I see you’ve met the institute director.”
Instantly…
My stomach did that thing where it drops through the floor of the airport and keeps falling somewhere past the tarmac.
I thought, well, that’s it. New job, new state, and I’ve just spent five minutes telling the actual director of the organisation that his systems are second rate. Nice work. Really thought that one through.
But is it always like that?
You’d think honesty, especially unsolicited honesty delivered to the wrong person at the wrong time, would be the fastest way to sabotage yourself. That’s certainly what I believed, standing there watching my new career flash before my eyes.
But here’s what actually happened.
Nothing bad. Nothing at all, in fact, except in my own head for the rest of that flight.
That director didn’t get defensive. He didn’t quietly file my name away under “difficult.” Instead, over the following months, he became one of the people I trusted most in that organisation. Genuinely. Not the fake, polished, corporate kind of trust. The real kind.
About twelve months later, he asked me to sit in on a top level management meeting. Not to take notes, not to fetch coffee, just to listen. Afterwards, he asked me what I honestly thought of how the meeting went.
Not the safe answer. Not the “it was great, really productive” answer that everyone gives because that’s what you’re supposed to say in front of management. He wanted the real one.
So I gave it to him.
What I have learnt
Most people in positions of authority are surrounded by yes people. People whose job security depends on nodding along. People who’ve learned, often the hard way, that telling the boss the truth can cost you. So they don’t. They smooth things over, they tell the boss what they want to hear, and slowly the boss loses access to what’s actually happening in their own organisation.
When someone finally walks up and tells them the truth, without an agenda, without trying to win a promotion or avoid a bollocking, it stands out. It’s rare. And rare things get noticed.
I wasn’t trying to impress the director at that airport. I didn’t even know he was the director. I was just answering a question the way I answer every question, honestly. And that accident of honesty ended up building more trust and more opportunity than years of careful, calculated networking ever could have.
There’s a lesson buried in that airport conversation that applies well beyond corridors of TAFE management. It applies to musicians, songwriters, anyone trying to build a career and a reputation from scratch.
Being accountable and staying credible go hand in hand. If you say what you actually think, respectfully, consistently, people learn they can rely on you for the truth, even when the truth is a bit uncomfortable. And that reliability becomes your reputation. Your reputation becomes your career.
You can’t fake that. You can’t polish your way into it either. You either are that person, or you’re not.
Suck it up and speak up
Here’s where a lot of people get it wrong. They think honesty means being blunt, harsh, or unnecessarily critical. It doesn’t. There’s a massive difference between honestly answering a question and going out of your way to tear someone down.
I didn’t insult the director. I didn’t call his organisation a joke or make it personal. I simply compared what I’d experienced and gave my honest opinion, the same way I would to a mate over a coffee.
That’s the version of honesty worth practicing. Not cruelty dressed up as authenticity. Just genuinely saying what you think, when you’re asked, without performing for the room.
If you’re chasing a career in music, or really any creative field, you’ll meet plenty of people who only tell you what they think you want to hear. Producers who say your mix sounds great when it doesn’t. Bandmates who say the new song is a banger when it’s actually pretty average. Venues who promise the world and deliver a broom cupboard with a microphone stand.
Be the person who doesn’t do that. Be the person people trust to give it to them straight, kindly, but straight.
It’s not about me
Looking back, that moment at the airport wasn’t really about proving how smart or observant I was. It wasn’t about winning points off the director. It was about being genuinely useful to him, giving him information he actually needed but rarely got.
That’s the real takeaway here. Honesty isn’t a performance for your own benefit. It’s a gift you give other people, the chance to see things as they actually are, not as everyone around them is too scared to describe.
There was no rocket science in any of this. No grand strategy, no networking masterclass, no carefully rehearsed elevator pitch.
Just honesty.
And somehow, that turned out to be worth more than every polished, safe, forgettable conversation I’ve ever had.
So next time someone asks what you really think, whether it’s about their organisation, their song, their business idea or their band name, take the risk. Tell them. You might just build the kind of trust that no amount of networking could ever buy you.
Honesty in your career